Not funny Larry

Comedian and Seinfeld creator Larry David’s monologue on Saturday Night Live in which he joked about finding a date at a concentration camp has been heavily criticised.

At one point, Larry David, discussing his obsession with women, wondered: “If I’d grown up in Poland when Hitler came to power and was sent to a concentration camp, would I still be checking out women in the camp? I think I would. The problem is, there are no good opening lines in a concentration camp” He then joked about approaching a fellow inmate, “‘How’s it going? They treating you OK? ‘You know, if we ever get out of here, I’d love to take you out for some latkes. You like latkes?’

Dr Dvir Abramovich, Chairman of the ADC, issued the following statement

“Once again, Holocaust exploitation and trivialisation has reached new lows. While we all appreciate the value of humour, and give comedians a lot of leeway, public figures should know better and realise that there are certain things that one should not joke about. The systemic extermination of millions of Jews and millions of others in the Holocaust is one.

It is shocking that anyone, especially one who is Jewish, would think that it is appropriate to use the deaths of men, women and children in the concentration camps to generate punchlines.

Comedians need to ensure that their satire, which often pushes the envelope, does not cross the line with remarks that are so deeply offensive and hurtful to Holocaust survivors who are still living with their loss and pain every day. Their suffering and hellish experiences should never be debased and degraded for the sake of cheap laughs. Such jokes diminish and dilute the real impact and meaning of the Shoah, and it is difficult to understand why the producers of SNL allowed this monologue to make it to air. We hope that the producers and Larry David see it in their heart to issue a formal apology.”

The sequence begins “I’ve always, always, been obsessed with women, and I’ve often wondered — if I’d grown up in Poland when Hitler came to power and was sent to a concentration camp, would I still be checking out women in the camp?” said David, whose family is Jewish.

Comments

Immorality is the handmaiden of ignorance, self-centredness and stupidity in those whose sole purpose is self-advancement and the cheap craving for notoriety as a mistaken substitute for self-importance.

A heavily laden, convoluted, seemingly endless phrase concluding with a stark absurdity.
As the musing reads, self importance would be morally more desirable than the laundry list of the comparative highly offensive “virtues” supposedly attributed to an otherwise fine man and an outstanding entertainer, Larry David .

Totally shocking! What is with, this Jewish guy? VERY hard to believe he did not anticipate the reaction! “Only in America”? – afterall, they do have an out of control mass-shooting phenomenon. Much as I am reluctant to criticise our American cousins, this effort by David was over the top. May every kugel he eats for the next 12 months, turn very sour in his mouth! Mmm, make that 12 years! [Lizzie via Bendigo]

Whatever possessed this brother of yours, not that he needs me to ask.
He and others with the same mentality giving fodder to those less sympathetic in my opinion.
He carries the same spirit of those who perished in those concentration camps crying out from the walls still standing.
Maybe he should make Aliyah [my choice of word] to those holy sites in reparation.
He and others.

…and one more thing. No one should assume ascendance over the tragedies of the Shoah, chastising gratuitously in a patronising manner. Larry David did not “use the death” of any one, he did not and, I am sure, would not make any improper allusion to the suffering of his fellow Jews. In decades of a very successful public life he has been and remains a remarkable mensch.

Larry David has surprised a large number of people, to be honest all comments seen since his quips in “question” have been of the negative, even worse kind and, not surprisingly, Jewish more “formal” voices found it necessary to express their more elaborate objections, as seen right here.
Mine, maybe another “not surprisingly”, is of the complete opposite take.

Larry’s imagined scenes in a concentration camp were meant to elicit something most critics missed out completely.
In the horrors of those places what needed to be kept alive apart from the physical being was the spirit, the necessary strength of the will to survive and one of the most powerful weapons those wretched souls had against their planned fate was HUMOUR.
Humour, the imagined phantasmagorical , ridiculous imagery was an inner most useful mechanism of survival under such circumstances as the camps.
Imagining life as it should have been, relationships, social contacts, falling in love and so on in an otherwise normal world, was a shield of survival in the camps and Larry David expressed all that in a most considerate and, yes, very, very funny way.
I know it from my own family, the stories they related to us….Music was another great aid, music of all kinds, but humour a very useful survival armour.
Larry is imagining Jews without a hope, hoping through their defiance of cruelty a life as it should be, normal with all the paraphernalia Larry himself offered us.
I was impressed by his CONSIDERED, warm and, yes, very funny little, incredibly innocent sketch and it reminded me at once of those magnificent evenings at home when my wonderful parents would reminisce with their friends and Laci, Bandi, Miki, Moishe, Pista were also peppering their stories with light, funny lines , even more so than Larry, about the same times, same places where all of them “lived” and , so miraculously survived. Not to worry, they also suffered terribly about the same…My Mother , Emmi, cried EVERY DAY ever so quietly only to be gently cuddled into calm by her surviving life companion, Pali, my Father….
Larry’s humour, as reflected upon those tragic events, must be seen as an integral part of our millenarian survival kit in the face of seemingly interminable oppression.

The bit about Weinstein was, once again, meant to emphasise that, if the “villain” in a widely related story happens to be Jewish it does not JUST happen… Nothing and no one as horrendous as a Weinstein !!!

Typical self-denigrating, self-soiling cheesiness so typical of of the very worst of the worst so-called “comedians. There’s nothing funny about presenting yourself as a Jewish shmuck. It’s just pathetic and an insult to your brethren. That is, if the likes of you understand that you have any.

Mel Brooks responded to a question about the audience reaction at the time to ‘The Producers’ –

BROOKS: The Jews were horrified. I received resentful letters of protest, saying things like: How can you make jokes about Hitler? The man murdered 6 million Jews.” But “The Producers” doesn’t concern a concentration camp or the Holocaust.

SPIEGEL: Can you really separate Hitler from the Holocaust?

BROOKS: You have to separate it. For example, Roberto Benigni’s comedy Life Is Beautiful really annoyed me. A crazy film that even attempted to find comedy in a concentration camp. It showed the barracks in which Jews were kept like cattle, and it made jokes about it. The philosophy of the film is: people can get over anything. No, they can’t. They can’t get over a concentration camp.

ABSOLUTELY RIGHT and “The Producers” is a masterpiece.
Messrs Byalistok and Bloom can offer a few groisse Moishe officionados a bit of chochma of how to understand the Jewish ethos. Does a Mr. Herzog really believe, for instance, that : “Don’t be stupid, be a smarty/ Come and join the nazi party !” was a real nazi propaganda reel !!?? Me thinks he does.

Pathetic really; seems David knows very little about the slaughter of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust to make such utterly tasteless jokes. But that’s the character he portrays in Curb Your Enthusiasm: A complete and utter dick head.

Even more evidently that “Curb Your Enthusiasm” is only for a select audience.
Wonder why the show made him so incredibly famous and admired !!
True, Larry David never published a single letter in the Australian Jewish News.

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